To Rev. Convers Francis.
New Rochelle [N. Y.], September 25, 1835.
We are boarding in the family of an honest Hicksite Quaker, in this quiet secluded village, which we chose both for economy and safe distance from cities.
There is nothing in the neighborhood worthy of a traveller's attention except the grave of Tom Paine, in the corner of a field, near the road-side.
It is surrounded by a rough stone wall, two or three feet high.
In one place the stones are broken down and lying loose, where Cobbett entered to carry off his bones.
He was buried in this lonely manner, because all the churches, and even the Quakers, refused him admittance into their burying-grounds.
And we who boast of living in a more liberal age, are carrying on the same petty persecution under different forms!
I agree with you most cordially that man, without a “principle of reverence for something higher than his own will, is a poor and wretched being ;” but I would have that reverence placed on principles, not on persons ; and this in a true republic would, I believe, be the case.
I believe our difficulties grow out of the fact that we have in reality very little republicanism.
A principle of despotism was admitted in
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the very formation of our government, to sanction which our consciences have been continually silenced and seared.
In our social institutions, aristocracy has largely mingled.
The opinion of a great man stands in the place of truth; and thus the power of perceiving truth is lost.
We should be little troubled with mobs if people called respectable did not give them their sanction.
But you will say a true republic never can exist.
In this, I have more faith than you. I believe the world will be brought into a state of order through manifold revolutions.
Sometimes we may be tempted to think it would have been better for us not to have been cast on these evil times; but this is a selfish consideration; we ought rather to rejoice that we have much to do as mediums in the regeneration of the world. ...
You ask me to be prudent, and I will be so, as far as is consistent with a sense of duty; but this will not be what the world calls prudent.
Firmness is the virtue most needed in times of excitement.
What consequence is it if a few individuals do sink to untimely and dishonored graves, if the progress of great principles is still onward?
Perchance for this cause came we into the world.
I have examined the history of the slave too thoroughly, and felt his wrongs too deeply, to be prudent in the worldly sense of the term.
I know too well the cruel and wicked mockery contained in all the excuses and palliations of the system. 